Thursday, 09 August 2018

July chez nous was dominated by house renovations. Our existing bathroom and shower room weren't so bad but a couple of bits needed replacing (a bit like me) so we decided to go the whole hog and blitz the lot.

It's taken almost a month tor the work to be completed, during which time I've been confined to barracks on tea making, question answering and decision making duties. I found myself quietly (mostly) crawling the walls with cabin fever yet again, but this time to the sounds of songs of the 80s, sung very loudly and somewhat less than pitch perfect, with a cocker spaniel providing backing vocals.

But it's finished and we now have a swish wet room and a pristinely white bathroom, which just need a few faffy bits adding here and there to complete the look. So far, I'm managing to keep everything sparklingly clean with the help of a couple of packs of e-cloths (thanks to the couple of bloggers for introducing me to these) and forcing everyone else to use the facilties elsewhere (just kidding....maybe). But who knows how long until I throw the e-cloth in? All bets are off.

July is the Boy's birthday month and we celebrated at Pizza Express (his choice) and, of course, with cake. This year's offering was a chocolate and salted caramel popcorn creation which involved a first, and possibly last, attempt at Swiss meringue buttercream (life's too short for all that whisking). It wasn't perfect (the chocolate sponge was moist but strangely crumbly), I couldn't taste it (made with several blocks of butter, this was the opposite of vegan) but it was well received, the candles were blown out as a wish was made and every last crumb disappeared.

Books have been featuring as usual, despite all the upheaval of bathroom works. Highlights were I Remember You, a spooky tale, from Iceland's queen of crime fiction, about three friends who set out to spend a week renovating a dilapidated property in a remote abandoned village. Meanwhile, the police are drawn into revisiting the cases of a couple of missing children. I found Norah Webster ,which has been sitting on the book pile for quite a while, more enjoyable than the earlier Brooklyn. Norah, a mother of four, is newly widowed and this is the story of her adjustment to life without her husband in a small Irish town in the late 1960s. The Night Visitor is a claustrophobic tale. Two women, one a writer and respected historian, the other an older, socially awkward housekeeper, and a big. fat. lie.

A hefty book at over 700 pages, A Little Life has been described by many reviewers as a moving, tear inducing, all consuming read and it's a book I've been avoiding. The time is now right. I'm going in.

Boo is still not fully recovered from his recent major surgery and appears to have, erm, sprung a leak (not bladder related, if you were wondering). The vet is puzzled and consulting with a colleague, whilst in the meantime Boo, to his embarrassment, is wearing nappies.

The littlest and his mama paid us a visit one weekend so, armed with a picnic and Monkey, off we went to the RSPB reserve at Saltholme. I absolutely love this place, with its wide open spaces, wetlands, industrial backdrop and reminders of the town's heritage.

I've fallen out with all things culinary and proper meals have been few and far between here lately. Following the latest trip to the supermarket, dinner has turned decidedly pastel. And very sweet. Classy, no?

Friday, 13 October 2017

The central library in town is a Carnegie library, in operation since 1912 and a familiar, if not particularly striking, building for most locals.

Whilst the surrounding area has changed beyond recognition (the terraced streets and corner shops have long since gone, the little park complete with bandstand has been paved over, the police station is now a car park, MIMA is next door in all it's glass fronted glory and there are the controversial plans to build five office blocks round the corner), the library has been quietly chugging along quite nicely, thank you very much.

Some visitors use the bank of computers, some go in for a sit down and a warm, some, like me, browse the books and the noticeboards.

The council, in its wisdom (and I use that term very loosely) has decided the library is 'intimidating'. Big changes of an undisclosed nature have been announced. Change here usually means demolition. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried.

The reference library is housed on the first floor, the place I used to hang around outside every week all those years ago, waiting to meet my friend who had a Saturday job there, and now the perfect spot for quiet reading or writing or attending one of the literary events library staff are so good at organising.

One Saturday more recently, I was lucky to nab a ticket to see my favourite band, fellow Teessiders Cattle and Cane (have a listen here),who were performing an acoustic set. Great music amongst shelf after shelf of books. How perfect is that?

Of course, books are an ever present feature at home. (I'd had another good clear-out but then, looking in the loft for suitable items for the local Scout group's annual jumble sale, I was reunited with a huge box of forgotten but much loved reads. I'm still trying to find space for them.)

Jane Casey's The Kill is part of the DC Maeve Kerrigan crime series and is a well paced police procedural. A killer is at large in London. The body count is mounting and someone clearly has a grudge against coppers. I gobbled this one up.

House of Spines has been hailed as a chilling contemporary gothic and is a book I've been itching to get stuck into. Ran McGhie, a young writer with no immediate family and a history of mental illness, inherits a mansion on the outskirts of Glasgow from a relative he'd not only never met but didn't know existed. The vast house comes with certain conditions but Ran, struggling to keep his head above water, thanks his lucky stars and quickly moves in. But all is not as it seems and Newton Hall begins to whisper its secrets. The novel is reminiscent of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger, with a smidgeon of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw but, for me (yes, I know I'm in the minority), it was disappointing. The annoying printing errors probably didn't help.

The current TBR pile is a mix of borrowed and purchased from Waterstones (well, who can resist a buy one, get one half price offer?).

The garden is well and truly in autumnal mode, slowing down but still providing some welcome splashes of colour. There's an accumulation of spring bulbs awaiting planting. It's on the to do list but, given last year's are still languishing in a pile in the shed, they may be in for a lengthy wait.

The oven has been working hard so far this month. I've been working similarly hard to keep it clean and could have done without the tomato and mozzarella tart overflowing spectacularly whilst cooking.

Simple bakes (lemon drizzle cake, brownies, cheese and chive scones) are keeping the other two here happy (a vegan ginger cake just for me ended up in the bin, it was so inedibly damp) whilst the Boy has been turning his hand to all things filo (me, I just buy the ready-made stuff).

He mentioned he was planning to have a crack at baking a seasonal loaf and I had pictures in my head of a crusty golden wheatsheaf, complete with cute bread mouse. You know the ones.

Thursday, 28 September 2017

It's that time of year when the light changes, the temperature drops (the colder the better for me), the days shorten (or, as my dad used to say, it gets late early), the colours glow, and Mother Nature begins the process of hunkering down.

Cooler weather cooking and baking is so much easier and so much more satisfying. Comfort food. Platefuls of good old stodge. Yorkshire puds, mashed potatoes, hearty bean stews, dumplings, creamy dhals, fruity sponges, custard. Just typing the words makes me feel a whole lot better.

Suddenly, in my year round uniform of black jeans, long sleeved shirts, military boots, I'm wearing season appropriate clothes. And then there's the multitude of polo neck sweaters (my absolute favourites), jackets, coats, hats and scarves waiting patiently in the wings.

Growing up in a slum clearance area (I didn't know it at the time, it was just home), gardens, trees and wildlife didn't form a daily backdrop to the changing seasons (there was that memorable year when an owl took up residence on the street light outside the butcher's shop). The nature table in a corner of the classroom in junior school, carefully maintained by the always inspiring Mrs Whitehouse, was the closest many of us ever got to conkers, fir cones, feathers that hadn't come from a pigeon, nests and colourful leaves as big as hands. Now, much to the Boo's delight, we're lucky to live right on the doorstep of woodland trails, just there for the autumnal walking (and caterpillar spotting).

Pumpkins didn't feature at all in my childhood. I didn't know they existed outside the pages of a favourite book, where one was magically turned into a glass coach. These days, cans of pumpkin puree are readily available in the supermarkets and easily turned into a fragrantly spiced and fruited loaf. (I used mostly wholemeal flour, added sultanas and walnuts, omitted the banana and created a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and ginger.)

Coffee is always my hot beverage of choice. But autumn marks the reappearance of gingerbread syrup flavoured drinks in the coffee shops and resistance, I find, is futile. A wholefood shop in a nearby town has recently offered fresh turmeric for sale and I'm planning on enlivening the drinks menu here with mugs of turmeric and ginger latte.

Seasonal changes appear elsewhere. I'm a big fan of matching my reading to the time of year whenever I can and, as Halloween approaches, I'm eager to get stuck into a spooky new book(though in no particular hurry to finish the current book at bedtime, a gripping tale of the Witchfinder General and life in mid 17th century England).

Although I light scented candles indoors throughout the year, they make so much more sense as the nights draw in, adding to the cosy feel as you close the curtains, switch on the lamps and settle down to tune into the latest episode of Bake Off or the much less sugaryTin Star. And an added bonus, they don't highlight your lack of dusting like sunlight does.

Wednesday, 12 July 2017

We've been spending time (not to mention mucho dinero) on replacing a raft of boring but essential items which had seemingly conspired to simultaneously give up the ghost. Things like a bed, a fridge freezer, an oven, a washing machine, a steam iron and a garden pond pump (two of the biggest fish were sad casualties of this particular malfunction, though they were given a decent burial under the whitebeam at the bottom of the garden which I must remember before embarking on the usual slap-happy spade work).

Then, as we worked through the ever increasing catalogue of ailing appliances, the dog stopped eating. Initially someone joked he was just helping ease the financial situation by reducing his (specialist dried stuff for sensitive doggy tums) food intake. He became so bony, we all stopped patting him in case he broke. There followed a number of blood tests and investigations under general anaesthetic and then a vet's bill so large I wished I'd been anaesthetised before being presented with it. The result? Nothing untoward was detected. Nothing at all. Yet the refusal to eat continued despite the wafting of normally bite your hand off treats under his nose, such as cubes of vintage cheddar, scrambled eggs, marinated tofu, and sometimes all three together. As a last-ditch attempt to tickle the taste buds, the switch was made to those pouches of gravy soaked chunks. The result? He scoffed every single scrap, with an air of, 'Thank goodness and about time, too', and has done at every meal since. Even the cat licks out the dog's dinner bowl. I've now started another Things To Be Replaced list as my car needs new tyres, the power washer hasn't recovered from my attempts at cleaning the paving slabs in the back garden and I'm wearing crooked specs (thought I'd developed a neurological problem but thankfully it was just down to all the wonk).

London called one Saturday so off I went, in the company of my cousin. We met up with her boy, who lives and works in the capital, for coffee and a good old chinwag and then wandered the streets of the city, eventually heading across London Bridge towards the resistance-is-futile stalls of Borough Market before finally ending the day with another delicious afternoon tea here and my first vegan macaron.

Last weekend we supported a charity fundraising open gardens event in the North Yorkshire market town up the road. You really can't beat a good nose round someone else's plot, however small, for inspiration, ideas and cheap plants (and, in the case of the mister, regular top ups of tea and slices of homemade cake), even when you've visited some of the gardens several times over the years. One thing's for sure, the garden here would never meet the standard for public inspection. Well, unless the dead leaves (damned enormous, constantly shedding eucalyptus), twigs (despised white buddleias that were supposed to be blue not white and much less snappy) and trampled plants (too many big furry feet plodding around and I don't mean the mister's) theme becomes de rigueur.

Just before the oven died, I managed to nab a little time in the kitchen (someone else here is still obsessed with all things patisserie and is now making up his own recipes - lemon meringue eclairs anyone?) for a spot of gentle pottering with the piping bag. Yes, the Boy might be Star Baker but I'm still the Buttercream Queen.

Wednesday, 21 June 2017

I had intended to write the promised book related post but, in a fit of je ne sais quoi, the plan changed and I decided to tackle the outstanding job of decorating the smallest bedroom.

My parents would have nothing to do with anything involving a tin of paint and always called in the professionals. The mister, however, has tackled all sorts of DIY projects, big and small, since we acquired our first house way back in the day. But in recent years he's lost all enthusiasm for that kind of thing and arguably the required flexibility to scale ladders safely. (Me? Like a mountain goat).

To date, my biggest claim to decorating fame has been a 'refresh' of the little summerhouse at the bottom of the garden. I'm the only one who uses it and no-one can spot the drips and missed bits from other parts of the garden.

'Are you sure you know what you're doing?, queried Mr. Know-It-All as I lumbered up the stairs with the necessary equipment.

Oh, come on, how difficult can it be? The ceiling's already white and the walls not-quite-white, so the whole room will be done and dusted in a jiffy.

Or so I thought.

It didn't bode well when I had to call for assistance with getting the lid off the enormous (and heavy) tub of paint.

Then, when I poured paint into the tray I couldn't stop the flow, so, in the absence of anything more appropriate, had to use my hands to get the globby (it's a word, I've checked) mountain of overflow back into the tub.

I started with the ceiling but quickly gave up when I couldn't differentiate the freshly painted strip from the rest. I mean, who wants to waste their time and effort? And anyway, who looks at ceilings outside of the Sistine Chapel?

Also, I sincerely hope that whoever came up with the idea of painting with a roller didn't receive a Nobel prize or design award. Honestly, those things just spray paint everywhere. E.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e.

Of course, someone couldn't resist poking his nose in at regular intervals.

'You're supposed to start with the corners'.

Turns out I'm not good with corners.

And I'm no better with the bits in between the corners.

Maybe patchy will become a decorating trend.

Then there's painting behind the radiator. I mean, how?

Ditto the venetian blind. Should I take it down? Again, how?**

I've lost count of the number of times I've stood in the loaded paint tray. Buzz Cat decided to do that 'Look at me, I'm outside the bedroom window, balancing precariously on a narrow ledge, oops, nearly fell off there' and I inadvertently stepped off the ladder when Nathan, our usually quiet and reserved window cleaner, announced his unexpected presence (surely he does his round on a Thursday?) by sticking his head in the room and calling out 'Hiya'.

The clock holding down the dust sheet (one of the Boy's duvet covers as I couldn't locate the dust sheets) fell off the top of the wardrobe and badly bruised my foot. Downward dog is going to be painful.

My hair, face, hands and forearms are pebble-dashed.

My watch strap is ruined and my rings and bangles require a good sandblasting.

The jeans and shirt I've been wearing are beyond recognition and there's paint inside my bra.

The laminate flooring looks like Jackson Pollock was unleashed on it. When he was in his Paw Prints phase. Yep, whilst I was downstairs enjoying a much needed tea break, Bea Cat decided to check on progress, leaving a white matt trail across the bedroom and onto the carpeted landing. Actually, the little paw prints look quite artistic amongst all the other blobs and drips and smears and sprays.

'You'll never remove all that paint from the floor', advised Job's Comforter.*

'Not to mention the cat's paws', I thought.

It's probably safe to say interior decorating really isn't my forte.

I'm beginning to wonder if anything is.

Edited to add:

*Turns out The Expert knows diddly-squat about laminate flooring and paint splashes as I've easily (well, fairly easily) removed most of them with a packet of Sainsbury's antibacterial wipes (supersize).

Wednesday, 18 January 2017

The first month of the year has always been a celebratory time in my family because of all the birthdays. Now there's just the one but I really don't mind these dark days at all and they give me the perfect excuse to switch on all the lamps and light all the candles. Shame it hasn't yet been cold enough (our central heating is seemingly dancing to its own tune so I'm mafted most of the time) to warrant the wearing of a new Nordic jumper.

The current book at bedtime had been on the reading list for quite some time.

Then I came across a selection of Christmas reads, which included a copy, at a ridiculous price. Some of the books I already have in different editions but five quid for eight festively 'wrapped' books? A bargain that just could not be passed by. You're welcome.

Like other parts of the country, the north east was treated to a fall of snow at the end of last week but it was fleeting and by Sunday there was just a hint of what had been. It seems such a long time since we've experienced a thick blanket of white. Yes, I appreciate it can cause all sorts of problems but, oh, you just can't beat waking up to a transformed landscape and that unmistakable crunch as you first step out onto that pristine layer.

There was a Terry's chocolate orange, superfluous to requirements when filling the Christmas stockings, lurking in the cupboard. So I selflessly made brownies for the other two here, using this recipe (I scattered big chunks of the chocolate orange across the top and gave them a dusting of sugar snow).

They were quickly mixed, out of the oven and into mouths in no time. As the munching progressed, I asked what they were like. 'Cake', was the helpful response.

Wednesday, 14 December 2016

Rather a lot has been happening here, though not quite in the way planned.

1. We're lucky to have more than enough, erm, facilities in our house (two up, one down, which works out at one toilet each when there's just the three of us) but it's annoying when one of the afore mentioned facilities suddenly decides to impersonate Niagara and merrily gush water ad infinitum. A repair is beyond the mister's capabilities (though he did manage to dismantle part of it, exposing the innards and leaving the bits on the bathroom floor for people to stub their toes on, especially when they're using the striped towels that make your eyes go funny), so it's now a question of waiting for the plumber to fit in a visit in the middle of installing a sparkling new Christmas kitchen for someone else. And of remembering the facility is not functioning. I did stick on a warning note but the ink leaked onto the lid which now shouts 'DO NOT USE ' in a lovely shade of teal. And I'm mindful that my mother would have been most unhappy with all this talk of *toilets*.

2. The mister then decided to do a teeny tiny straightforward refurb in the shower room by replacing the door seal, got carried away and, as a result, the shower is similarly out of action and we've now strayed into more than minor works territory, necessitating the ordering and delivery of various strangely shaped parcels and tools amidst much humming and hawing over Google search results.

3. With the house looking worryingly free from Christmas, we decided to escape the sanitary sick and wounded and get the glitter ball rolling by popping out to buy a tree. Two hours later, we're parked in a lay-by about 10 minutes from home, in a vehicle with a flat as a pancake tyre, waiting for what feels like forever to be towed home by the breakdown truck. And, we observe, we're still tree-less. And why do I always think about toilets (sorry, Mother) the minute I'm nowhere near one?

4. The Boy was in the kitchen baking industrial quantities of something with religieuse in the title on Sunday night to discover, whilst up to his elbows in egg shells, the waste disposal unit had given up the ghost. Now I realise this was yet another first world problem but I'm so used to chucking disgusting stuff into that handy gadget and I really dislike having to stick my hand deep into it to retrieve whatever it was I'd unthinkingly tried to get rid of in an environmentally friendly way. And yes, I've seen that Final Destination scene and know only too well what can happen.

5. Maybe deciding we'd had more than the usual three troublesome things, the waste disposal unit unexpectedly bucked the trend and somehow healed itself. I mentioned it to the Boy. 'It's a Christmas miracle', was the muttered reply.

* * *

(In view of the unsavoury nature of much of the content in this post, I give you a picture of vegan mince pies, baked by my own fair hand to my own recipe and intended for the freezer. They were delicious, by the way. Every single one of them.)

Friday, 01 April 2016

Sweet smells are an important part of my life. I wear perfume every day, use scented hand creams (the current favourite is ginger), there are fragranced candles and melts dotted about the house, we have room sprays and those little bottles of smelly stuff that you plonk sticks in. I buy things like bathroom sprays, shampoo and washing up liquid, laundry powder and handwash (ooh, chocolate orange and bubblegum) purely based on their pong.

Like the sawdust that covered every surface in my friend's grandad's workshop which we visited to collect little offcuts of wood and which I discovered many years later was where the coffins were made for his undertakers business.

Like the calomine lotion dabbed on 'midgie' bites in the summer, teeny paper wrapped rectangles of cinnamon flavoured Dentyne chewing gum, ink stained fingers after practising joined up writing in junior school using scratchy pens dipped in inkwells filled by that week's Ink Monitor, the perfectly folded packets of Beecham's powders my brother always insisted cured every ill.

Like the kitchen sink being scrubbed with Vim, the green blocks of Fairy household soap my dad used to wash his hair, the mister's aroma of patchouli oil when we first met.

So so many, a whiff of any of which would catapult me right back.

A recent present from me to me (why, thank you) was another candle.

Oh my goodness. It's the smell of packets of crunchy Parma violets, of little bunches of purple flowers with heart shaped leaves which used to appear on the nature table at the back of Mrs Whitehouse's classroom, of Yardley Christmas gifts bought for my mum at the Co-op chemists with a ten bob note from my dad and enough left over to buy something for everyone else on my list. A tad expensive but so beautifully packaged and so highly fragranced, I may not need to light it.

A new (to me) aran jumper also found its way through the letterbox (actually it was left by the garden gate). It's a lovely handknit and, after a careful wash (I'm renowned for my efforts at keeping Barbie's wardrobe well stocked), now smells of what the container describes as 'Sunburst'.

Saturday, 12 March 2016

You buy flowers, you buy some more and then you're given an enormous bunch on Mothering Sunday.

You run out of vases and have to employ a coffee pot to display the overflow.

You add to the substantial TBR pile with yet more bargain reads. And then some.

You realise you've already read at least one of them.

You stop, look round and finally accept that you'll never write that 'My journey to minimalism' post. Me and my stuff? We're meant to live together.

You arrange a working lunch in the local art gallery with your friend, only to pass like ships in the night because someone who isn't you got the time wrong.

You just can't seem to shove in enough broccoli.

You meet your Girlie and the littlest for a day in York. No plans, just time to wander, catch up, eat good food, drink good coffee.

You share an otherwise empty train carriage with the shiniest, most well behaved traveller and his owner on the journey home. Ah yes, the perks of first class rail travel.

You stumble down pothole ridden paths in mud laden boots in the dark one night with a complaining ('will you just let me off this lead?') canine and a moaning ('will you just point the torch over here?') mister to try to catch sight of a steaming beauty. And maybe, just maybe, you did.

Monday, 15 February 2016

Signing up for an additional weekly yoga session. Another baby group but still, it all helps. Right?

Continuing the Scandi love with a few beautifully wrapped treats. For the house, not me.

Welcoming visitors with mango bellinis and nibbles.

Concocting a supper of savoury strudel, grilled courgettes, peas, feta and mint, and roasted peppers, sunblush tomatoes, mozzarella and basil, with fresh from the oven brownies, raspberries and vanilla ice cream to finish. Quicker to make than to type.

Forgetting to take foodie pictures before the demolition squad moved in.

Surprising myself and everyone else by marking the 14th of the month with homemade offerings of peanut butter cups (excellent recipe from here) for the big people and a card for the littlest.

Ignoring comments about some sort of plot having been lost.

Watching activity at the bird feeder.

Waking up to snow.

Wondering if it is etiquette to point out that someone has a little dab of something on their chin.